Trane: “Know what?”
“Jerry did it. Killed Dad. And probably Brett. I just...” She ran out of words.
Virgil: “How do you know?”
She swallowed pizza, and said, “I guess you had to be here. When I popped the question, he was quiet for a long time, and I could see him thinking about what to say. But I could see it on his face: he did it. I’ve known him for a long time and I could see it.”
“That’s probably not going to work in court,” Trane said.
Barry, the tech, was stripping microphones from the apartment, then packed up the receiver and checked out. Quill said, “You had so many mics here, we could have made a record.”
“Could have. Didn’t,” he said with a smile. “But don’t give up. We can try again if we can get him back here.”
“I could try to fuck him into saying it,” Quill suggested.
“No, no,” Trane said. “You saying that could probably get me thrown out of the police department. ‘Yeah, Trane got a teenagerto fuck the suspect into a confession.’ Jesus. I get goose bumps thinking about it.”
There were footsteps coming up the stairs as the tech was going down, and they heard him say, “Excuse me,” and Quill looked out the door, and said, “Hi, Mom.”
—
Out on the street, shadows cast by the setting sun spreading across the lawns, Virgil said to Trane, “I’m gonna get a steak. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“My husband’s at a doctors’ party,” she said, “talking about the lower intestinal tract. And maybe the upper intestinal tract. Telling proctologist jokes... Why don’t you buymea steak?”
“An Applebee’s steak?”
“That’s not as classy as it might be, but I’ll take it.”
—
They drove separately to the hotel, found a line at the Applebee’s, went over to the beer joint—which actually had a name, The Beacon—ordered steaks, and beer for Virgil and wine for Trane while they waited, and talked about the case for a few minutes, what they considered a near miss with Krause. The steaks came, and they’d almost finished them when the BCA tech guy called.
When he identified himself, Virgil blurted, “Jeez, I’m sorry, I forgot—”
“Krause’s phone just went dark,” the tech guy broke in.
“What?”
“It disappeared.”
“Where?”
“He was just turning south on Highway 61 up by White Bear.”
“Oh, Jesus.” He looked at Trane. “It’s Krause. He’s going after her.”
Trane yanked her phone out of her purse and punched some buttons, and then said, “Ah, no. We told her to turn her phone off. We told her... She hasn’t turned it back on.”
“What’s her mom’s name?” Virgil asked.
“I... I don’t know. I doubt it’s Quill. I think she remarried...”
“We gotta go,” Virgil said. “We gotta go.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
